Lago de Atitlan

We went to a Mayan village and joined the locals in their daily chores. everything is still done by hand, even the weaving of their clothing. No looms for these people, one end is tied to a pole and the other is looped around their body to keep the tension and they make some wonderful material, but two small backpacks don not permit us to bring anything back.


Good planning Nick, you can save heaps of money this way.
We also went to a local resource centre, the illiteracy here is very high. we visited a house which has been donated and transformed into an after hours learning centre. about 600 children, aged 6 - 10, attend this place at various times and can borrow books, be tutored by volunteers, both local and from overseas. They have just installed some computers and the internet is coming soon. These kids are really lovely and want to learn.

Lago de Atitlan is a collapsed volcano cone covering 128 sq kms and 320m deep. 3 volcanoes over 3000m loom over the lake. we stayed in Panajachel for 2 days and went by boat across the lake to san Marcos for lunch, stopping at a hot spring on the way. You could be in the water with one leg in 40C and the other in 15C, quite strange feeling. We continued across the lake to another town called Santiago, great markets, lots of kids flying kites.
We also travelled to another Mayan village, Chichicastenango, nearly all of these people were Mayan and were dressed in their traditional clothing, very colourful
Another volcano climb, this time a volcano called Pacaya. About 60 people loaded into a chicken bus and one and a half hour drive we were at the mountain. we climbed almost to the peak, 2552 metres and could see the glow of the lava. It was magic, when we arrived at the top we could see streams of lava. The last couple of hundred metres was across, newly cooled lava, very sharp and could cause nasty cuts if slipped upon. We were able to get within a couple of metres of the lava streams. The heat was extreme and any closer and i think we would have melted.